12-26-09 Green Bay, WI: What do you do before Game Day?-Tour Lambeau Field

Lambeau Field Remodeled in 2003- 72,000+ seating

Green Bay, WI (less than 100k inhabitants) owns Lambeau Field and The Green Bay Packers. It was 18F and wasn't any warmer on game day. The "Pack" beat the Seahawks 48-10 and are going to the Play-offs!

Vince Lombardi & some die-hard fans.....

Living Lean in 12 weeks: Call 425-451-881 Shawn Casey Results Fitness in downtown Bellevue starts January 5th at 6PM

Shawn Casey Results Fitness

State of the art 4,000sq. ft. fitness facility with new Life Fitness & Cybex resistance training apparatus. Cardo-treadmills, Arc Trainers, stationary bikes and Ellipticals.

Renowned trainer and fitness studio owner Shawn Casey

TRUCE Spa @ Westin Bellevue-Introduces Genealogy

Here's a great gift idea for a family member or yourself.......

Genealogy - Discover your family's unique story, includes multiple generations of your ancestry with a narrative of each generation. Genealogist on staff at TRUCE Spa http://www.trucespa.com/

Making "Rotkohl" for Thanksgiving Dinner

My version of the German/Family recipe for the holiday red cabbage dish that needs to be served with turkey, duck, pork or roast beef.

1 head of Red Cabbage

2 big apples

2 big onions

2 Bay Leaves

3 Whole Cloves

6 Juniper Berries

Red Wine Vinegar

Salt

Black Pepper

1/2 cup frozen Huckelberries (can use blue berries or any frozen forest berry)

Olive Oil

Peal and core all items. Starting with onion and apples feed into Food Processor with slicer attachment (thin) and slice. Add oil and bay leaves to hot oil, add onions and apples and let "sweat". You may use lid of pot for this, proceed until onions and apples start to break down. Add sliced cabbage and berries. Stir. Add 1/4 cup vinegar, stir and coat items. Turn heat down, adding additional spices, cover and cook slowly for 10 minutes. Take off lid and stir: salt and pepper to taste. Cabbage should still be crunchy. At this point liquid in pot should be gone and you should let pot cool down and chill over night. This dish needs to be made the day BEFORE you want to eat it, the chilling over night sets the flavor. Next day heat up being careful not to burn mixture, taste and re-season if needed.

Can also be heated up in warm oven after being tested for seasoning.

This is one of the reasons the cabbage family is my favorite group of vegetables! Easy, afordable, healthy and Yummy! Give it a try and tell me what you think!

Festival Gourmet Photographer Josef Kandoll-Puerto Vallarta's photographer of choice!

Josef Kandoll of Josef Kandoll Photography & his partner, Serge at this year's cooking class at Chef Thierry Blouet's Cafe' des Artistes during the XV Festival Gourmet.

Josef is a fabulous artist: photographing weddings, architectural images, etc. in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. He is American born speaks English & Spanish, the perfect gentleman! He is also a travel writer.

Chef Thierry Blouet, Chef Heinz Reize & Chef Roland Menetrey-Three Great Chefs: a single purpose! Festival Gourmet International in PV, Mexico

Left to right: Chef Roland, Chef Thierry, Chef Heiz (sitting in the shade at Coco Tropical-more fun that a barrel of monkeys!)

November 18th at Coco Tropical Restaurant as part of the XV Festival Gourmet a cooking class at Chef Heinz Reize's restaurant, lead by Chef Jens Nardmann (see previous post). Chefs Blouet & Reize are the founders of this now grand 10 day Food Festival/Event. Chef Menetrey joined his dynamic duo buds in 2000 to take the festival, which draws guest chefs and guests from all over the world, to another level. Imagine: world class chefs cooking in Puerto Vallarta's best restaurants, creating menus using local products and giving it their spin! Through the years, the host chefs have also traveled to Europe, the US and other destinations in a reverse culinary exchange. The cultural exchange, swapping of culinary knowledge and building of friendships and just plain fun: is priceless.

XV Festival Gourmet International Puerto Vallarta Mexico Nov. 12-22-09 Cooking Class @ Coco Tropical Restaurant Post #1

Cooking Class with Jens Nardmann from Hotel Monopol-St. Moritz Switzerland

The Fall Bounty in our part of the world-It's Harvest Time!

Figs from Ally's Tree

Carrots and Beets from Woody's Garden

Fashion Alert: “Got to have Shoes” in Old Bellevue on Main Street Very high-end Shoes going for pennies on the dollar, while they last!

Nov.9-09 Freedom Festival in Berlin-20 years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago this year. I lived in Berlin for a year in the 80's as a graduate exchange student and afterwards in Dortmund (at that time West Germany) attending a Hotel & Restaurant Management School. Almost 6 years in Germany, all told.

Yesterday, my friend in Dortmund, Gernot Eigen (he happens to be a retired chef) sent me images from a trip I took to Germany in 1989 (coming back from my brother's wedding in India)......I happened to be traveling in Southern Germany on the actual day the Wall went down. I woke up early, there was a very old, relic of a TV in the hotel room. For some reason, I turned it on (American and German TV wasn't really my thing before the days of CNN): I saw images of people sitting on the Berlin wall with bottles of champagne in thier hands! It was really confusing at first, I didn't have the sound on, turning on the sound and hearing what had happened the night before was shocking. Up to that point, the East German boarder police was still shooting people at the Wall. Later that day, we were hiking through the woods near by and saw East Germans who had come over a nearby boarder in their Trabant cars (those who had cars were in the vast minority). They were waving white handkerchives at us when we met them on the village road: we waved back. The towns and villages all over what had been West Germany set up places to sleep for those who were crossing the boarders and venturing over. The West German goverment was offering a small sum of West German Marks to East Germans who were visiting the West. It was both weird and great to be a witness to what seemed impossible.

Here are some pictures of a young women with red glasses: behind the glasses you can see it's me! Thanks Gernot for sending those images, a reminder of how time passes!

Cliffs of Moher in County Clare

Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland

Foodsnap-with Lou Manna

Day after Via Tribunali Pizza-Housewarming Party

9-13-09, the flat bed with the pizza oven is parked out in front, the thing is still really warm from the housewarming party the night before and the coals glowing: I throw in some natural charcoal and a oval stoneware dish with the following: seasoned butterflied leg of lamb, asian eggplants, onion, bay leaves, green head of garlic, red wine, water, seasoned toasted bread crumbs. I closed it up with foil and pushed it into the oven where the coals were glowing. It was 1:30pm, at 5PM....I pulled out the most amazing slow, baked food......perfectly cooked in the not so hot oven...add some freshly steamed basamti rice and a couple of glasses of red wine: it was heaven in the patio and food for the soul. We needed to have "something good" to share and enjoy......the perfect dish.

The plums ripen: Tree to ball jars in a weekend

The Italian Prune Plum tree we planted 7 years ago has been bearing fruit for 3 years, this is the biggest harvest yet.....I did give it water this year because it was so dry...but usually it bears anyway.

It is always good to have a helper when climbing in trees.

Must have been about 100 to 125 pounds of plums! Very ripe and really beautiful and sweet.

Pitted, cooked down, no sugar added, they were sweet enough.

Sterilize jars/lids & rings, then can in pressure cooker........use in winter:

• Panna Cotta and puddings


• Eat with oatmeal and or yogurt for breakfast


• Use as sauce for duck or roast pork


• Doctor up as hot plum sauce for Asian food


• Eat on homemade ice cream with toasted nuts


• Make sorbet, 2.5 cups in Cuisinart ice cream maker


• Try a sorbet version that has 2 tbsp. whipping cream added to the plums before processing


• Make parfaits with granola and yogurt


• eat plain and just enjoy the taste of late summer
  

Chanterelle Mushroom hunting: if you look in the right place you will find them!

After a long round trip in the truck, this was the pay- off, sauteed with butter, shallots, cod fish, basmati rice and homemade tartar sauce......almost as good as the process of hunting them down.

Chanterelle Mushroom hunting.......north of Seattle in a beautiful, secret place....I will let the photos do the talking!